Editing Hyouka:Volume 6 1 (section)

=== 4. ===



Red lights illuminated the night time city before us. Satoshi and I stopped walking at the same time, and we briefly lost track of our conversation as our eyes were held captive by the warm glow. It felt almost as if there were something foreign mixed in with the wind; maybe it was only a figment of my imagination. As he continued to stare at the lights, he suddenly started to speak, his head not moving an inch.

"You hungry?"

I wordlessly stared at the red paper lantern, "Ramen" written in black along its side.

It hadn't even crossed my mind that there might be a trap in a place like this, still so far away from the downtown. O' good children, run quickly on home into your beds now and dream sweet dreams for the night in Kamiyama City is dark and full of terrors.

"We shouldn't give in to evil."

"That's true... Evil things aren't good."

Three minutes later, the two of us were sitting shoulder to shoulder behind a narrow counter. The only things on the menu were regular chashu, and wonton ramen, as well as gyoza, rice, and beer. I ordered the regular ramen, saying, "I didn't really have a normal dinner," to justify it, and Satoshi asked for wonton ramen and a bowl of rice. The shopkeeper had a thick chest and a face the color of sandpaper, and there was a towel tied around his head. As we gave him our order, he responded in a booming voice seemingly coming from the pit of his stomach, "Comin' right up!"

Oil seemed to permeate all throughout the interior of the small shop, and the wallpaper, probably white originally, took on a yellow tint as well. It was only that way from age, however, and not from a lack of cleanliness. There had been another customer, but he passed by us on his way out, so the two of us were the only ones there. I took a sip of cold water from the cup in front of me and suddenly let out a small exhale. I knew we had been walking around during a hot season in a hot place, but I didn't realize I was this thirsty.

"Have you been here before, Houtarou?" asked Satoshi, who had taken to fiddling around with a pepper shaker as he lacked anything else to do.

"No. You?"

"Nope. It's my first time here. I had no idea there was something like this all the way here. It's just that you walked into the shop so confidently... I was sure you were a regular."

"You were so quick when you said we should go in... I was sure you always came here."

Probably hearing our conversation, the owner responded with a bellowing voice, "Come on now. You two won't regret it."

As I zoned out, becoming faintly aware of the light buzzing sound from the ventilation fan attached to the counter, Satoshi started to grumble to himself.

"I don't really care about the culprit... but I wonder why he did it."

"Who knows."

"The student council president doesn't even really do anything in the first place. All he pretty much does is speak as the student representative at events. I'd understand if the culprit got angry at the election because he wanted a change in the school regulations somehow, but what does he think he gains from throwing a wrench in the process?

The only way to know that would probably be to ask the person himself. That said...

"If you’re fine with guesses, I have a couple," I said.

"Let's hear it."

"He loves elections, so he wanted to do it again."

"How intriguing."

"He hates elections, so he wanted to watch it burn."

"I see."

"He thought student autonomy was a farce and wanted to pose the question on the election's relevance to the student body."

"Terrorism, huh?"

"The candidate he backed wasn't done preparing, so he wanted to buy some time for him."

"The deadline for that had already passed, so that's a no."

"He didn't like the election administration committee president, so he ruined the election to watch him go pale."

Satoshi snickered. "The scary part is I can't really rule that out. At any rate, I guess we don't know his motives. The terrorism one has a certain charm to it, though."

"It could even be a love charm, too."

The owner took out a tied bundle of chashu from the fridge, surprisingly large considering the narrow size of the shop. He took out a kitchen knife and said, "Special service for the students." I guess he was planning on giving us extra. I couldn't wait.

I suddenly asked something that had been on my mind.

"You said there were forty-eight members in the election administration committee, right?"

Satoshi returned the pepper shaker to the rack, rested his cheek on his hand, and responded, "Yeah. Three grades with eight classes each, and two from each of those classes."

"Yet, you also told me that only ten students did the counting."

Satoshi swiveled around on his bar seat to face me somewhat.

"Even with ten counters, that's only about 100 votes per person, so it's plenty possible. Besides, the counting process eats up a lot of space. If we had everyone do it, we'd need the gymnasium."

"How's it decided who does the counting?"

"Um..." He crossed his arms and mumbled. "Within the forty-eight members, half of those are the box carriers. They take the ballot boxes to the classrooms and come back with them when the voting's over. Their jobs end after they open the boxes and pour out the votes, so most of them go home when that's over."

"They didn't stay and watch?"

"Some of them did. The Class 1-E freshman was one of the members that stayed, but it's not like any of them are obligated to."

"You said there were also members in charge of the key and box distribution?"

"Two people take care of the box distribution. Like I said earlier, that includes the person who was in charge of distributing the paper ballots."

"Are the boxes already assigned to a specific grade and class from the start?"

"Nope, the boxes were each handed out to whoever was closest in line. The paper ballots were different, though. The students announced what grade and class they were in and then received their respective stack."

In Kamiyama High School, there were approximately forty-three to forty-four students in one class, though of course that number wasn't always consistent. Having too many or not enough ballots were both concerns, so they probably counted the total number of students in each class beforehand. Naturally, there'd be too many voting slips as a result of the students who were absent or had left early, but that surplus itself had nothing to do with the problem of the illegitimate votes considering that the total number of votes exceeded the total student body count.

"Is it also the box distributor's job to make the ballots?"

Satoshi tilted his head in thought.

"All I did was oversee the process today, so I don't know. What I can say, though, is that there's no way any one person could make over a thousand ballots. I imagine that there were a number of people that split up the work. They cut the paper and marked it with the election committee president's stamp."

"That stamp's the problem. The illegitimate votes had it too."

"That's right. Just like I said at the start, it'd be simple to forge the ballots."

The only reason this whole debacle became about illegitimate votes in the first place was because they had the president's stamp on them. Had there been nothing on the votes that were mixed in, they'd be accepted simply as random, foreign objects. It was necessary to have made the illegitimate votes ahead of time, so if I think about the culprit in this vein, I might be able to come up with something.

—This was what Satoshi wanted to know. In order to restore the dignity of Class 1-E's John Doe, he didn't want to figure out the culprit's name; he wanted to figure out how the illegitimate votes were mixed in with the rest. Of course, it goes without saying that knowing who the perpetrator was would be ideal, but we had neither a list of names nor the manpower or authority to get one in the first place. The most rational way to go about this seemed to be not trying to do the impossible.

"What about the people in charge of the key?"

"There's only one key, so only one person. He closes all twenty-four locks before the elections and opens all twenty-four after it.

"Sounds like he has a lot of free time."

"He does. Maybe it's the perfect job for you, Houtarou."

I wonder about that. Those kinds of jobs make you wait on standby for an excessively long amount of time precisely because there's so little to do, and on top of that, there's a lot of responsibility involved as a result—sounds like a strange way to waste your energy. I'd want to tap out.

"So, within the forty-eight committee members, twenty-four are box carriers, two are box distributors, one is the key carrier, and ten are counters."

"Aside from those, there's the president, the two vice presidents, and the two members who write stuff on the whiteboards."

"So that leaves 6 people without responsibilities."

"Some people took care of various chores and the clean-up. I don't think they have anything to do with it."

Satoshi leaned up close to me.

"With this, we have a general idea of what all forty-eight people we in charge of. This might be a promising lead."

"Who knows. It might get us nowhere, but our conversation just now proved to be a huge help."

"Oh? Why is that?'

Before me sat a bowl of ramen exuding the sweet fragrance of soy sauce. The noodles were thin and wavy and the broth was the deep, dark color. There were two slices of chashu, two pieces of bamboo, and in the center of the bowl was a thick pile of green, freshly boiled spinach.

"One bowl of ramen!"

I took one of the disposable chopsticks and broke them apart with a clean snap. I gazed down upon the chopsticks, beautifully separated with a clean edge, and responded.

"It helped shorten the wait." 

"Go ahead and eat. Don't wait for me."

"Will do."

Thank you very much.




The shop owner wasn't lying when he said we wouldn't regret coming here. There wasn't anything special about it compared to other soy sauce-based ramen, and if anything, it was a bit salty, but it was precisely that aspect of it that made it so satisfying as to befit the dish. I had never seen spinach added as well, but all it took was one bite to make myself wonder why I hadn’t. In addition to that—and I couldn't decide if it was for better or worse—the soup was inexplicably and excessively hot. As Satoshi's wonton ramen came soon after, I exclaimed, "Ouch! That's hot."

"Damn, seriously!" agreed Satoshi in the form of a small cry as he brought the noodles to his lips. He wolfed down around half of it as if in a trance, and then stopped moving his chopsticks to glance furtively at me, looking like he was checking to see if I had slowed down..

"By the way, and this is unrelated, but—"

The noodles were delicious... I've never been this fully aware of the taste of ramen. I don't think it was even the taste itself. Maybe the texture?

"Are you listening?"

"Yeah"

"These wontons are amazing."

"Gimme one."

"Back off. But yeah, did you know? Apparently Chitanda was talking about running for student council president."

My chopsticks stopped for a moment and then resumed.

"News to me."

Satoshi blew on the wontons a couple times to cool them down and then swallowed them in a smooth gulp.

"I guess she was pretty popular back at Inji Middle School, and she's from an important family in Jinde, after all. Her grades are amazing, and she's really likable. Rumor has it that even the head instructor was seeing if she'd run. She made a name for herself during the string of culture festival incidents, and that was only magnified when the news of her participating in the Living Dolls Festival got out. All that's really missing is her club activity track record."

It's probably true that being the Classics Club president didn't do much for you in that department.

"I'm not saying I know everything about her—"

I picked up the hot tangle of noodles and held them over the bowl to cool them naturally.

"—but I don't think she's the kind of person capable of doing what a student council president needs to do, practically speaking."

"It was Mayaka who took the helm with the anthology, too. But that's no different. Some would say that if the president was well liked by others,  that'd be enough; all you'd have to do is support them in doing those things."

Something like a decorative portable shrine, huh? It felt like him calling the student council president a purely symbolic entity was something of a joke, but considering we did have the domineering election committee president as an example, I couldn't exactly rule out what he said as being a possibility.

"Well, she ended up not running."

"Yep. Just like you said, Houtarou, apparently Chitanda didn't feel she was the right person for the job. That said, it looks like she was interested in if being the student council president came in handy after graduating."

"Came in handy... like for a recommendation?"

I heard that being a student council president made getting college recommendations simple. Though, I couldn't for the life of me understand why she'd be considering running for president with college entrance exams in mind.

Satoshi chuckled and waved his hands dismissively.

"I doubt it."

"Yeah."

"Apparently it was more along the lines of the experience representing Kamiyama High School helping her when she inherits her family's estate."

I ran out of noodles. I wanted to pick up the bowl and drink the broth, but it was still too hot. I absentmindedly gazed at the owner washing the dishes and the large pot of boiling water.

An heiress, huh? The world she lives in is so far removed from that of common sense. Even though I've come to bear witness to the circumstances that have enveloped her, even now, I can’t fully grasp it. When I try, I can't help but be astounded that something like that exists in this day and age. To Chitanda, however, that very word, "heiress," was her reality.

"Yeah..." muttered Satoshi with soft indifference as he slurped down the wonton ramen, "I wonder what I should be."

After a second failed attempt to pick up the bowl due to its combined weight and heat, I spotted some spoons next to the pepper shaker. I took one immediately and scooped up a mouthful.

"How about a lawyer?"

"A lawyer?"

Satoshi's voice burst out crazily as if someone had told him there was a mythical creature nearby.

"Haha, where the heck did that idea come from?"

The ramen in this shop has certainly piqued my interest. I'd have to try the wonton ramen next time if that's what it did to Satoshi. I had scooped up so much broth that it looked like it'd easily flow over the edge of the spoon, so I tilted it back and forth to empty it a little.

"'Cause you're a hero in the shadows."

"According to you..."

"A lawyer was just the first thing that came to mind. If not that... then how about a hitman? Striking down evildoers with a single blow under the veil of the night."

"Ha... ha..."

With a dry laugh, Satoshi returned to his wonton noodles. We had been eating at pretty much the same pace, but he still had his rice left. It looked like we'd be here a while longer.

A pair of flushed faced men in business suits walked into the shop that formerly only had the two of us. The owner called out, "Welcome!" Likely drunk, the men yelled in purposely obnoxious voices:

"Two bowls o' ramen!"

"An' two pints. Ya have any snacks?"

I felt like I heard Satoshi mumble something amidst the instantly lively shop interior.

"I hadn't considered that option... Interesting."

I wonder if I had inadvertently brought a hitman into this world.